Staging or Preparing Your Home for Marketing

The term “staging” has been used considerably in recent years in reference to properly preparing a home for sale. The term has come to mean proper preparation for the professional marketing of a home. It can include a broad range of changes to a home, from minor decorative touches to painting the home inside and out, new landscaping and updating kitchens and baths. Home staging is preparing the home to appeal to a broad range of potential buyers.

Particularly in our current real estate market, it is essential to do SOME of these items, whether we call it staging or updating, a great deal of the decision regarding what should be done, depends on the neighborhood that the property is in, the competition for that type or size home, as well as the seller’s financial situation.

From the primer of home preparation comes the recommendation to de-clutter everywhere. To make this task a bit less daunting, tackle one room or closet at a time. There are many destinations for your unneeded items, such as Goodwill Industries, Salvation Army or FreeCycle.com etc. Part of this very important “de-cluttering” is removing excess furniture that makes an area look smaller and less inviting.

Another very important part of general preparation is to clean, clean and clean some more. The windows need to be freshly washed to let maximum light in. If window treatments look tired, fresh new ones, allowing all possible sunlight, will help. If the room(s) lack sufficient natural light, add plenty of table or floor lamps.

After all else is done, put fresh flowers in strategic locations. The arrangements don’t need to be expensive. One bouquet can be divided among several rooms, depending on the room sizes. Please generally stay away from fake flowers of most types.

This process of home preparing or staging does not need to be expensive or necessarily done by a professional stager. Sometimes a trusted friend, with a kind, but critical eye can be very helpful. The goal is to create spaces that give a feeling of calm, that are uncluttered and fresh.

Jeri Baily, GRI, CBR

The $8000 tax credit for First Time Home Buyers will expire in less than 90 days. This means that as a First Time Home Buyer you need to accelerate your home search and get your home buying process into the Offer to Purchase stage by the end of September. The deadline for the program is November 30, 2009. This being said, you must have your transaction completed by the close of day on November 30th to qualify for the tax credit. Since there are many steps in the process that need to be completed once the offer is made, you should allow yourself 60 days to complete the necessary transactions.

In order to meet the November 30th deadline, you must factor in enough time for any hiccups in the process so you do not jeopardize qualifying for the tax credit. In July, Governor Patrick announced an added benefit to this program by offering a new opportunity to access affordable home ownerships by using the tax credit in advance of the federal tax credit. To learn more about this program and to get a complete list of participating lenders go to:

http://www.masshousing.com/